Public AI Index: MDE 01/011/2002

Statement by Amnesty International

Amnesty International renews its call on Israel, whose delegates are currently in New York, and the Palestinian Authority to fully cooperate with the fact-finding team as established by the UN Secretary-General to investigate what happened in Jenin.

Amnesty International stresses that the team should be enabled to conduct a thorough, professional, independent and impartial investigation into what happened. It should look at alleged abuses of human rights and international humanitarian law by all sides: the Israeli forces as well as Palestinian armed groups. In order to conduct an authoritative inquiry, the team must be fully supported by adequate numbers of relevant experts, notably in the field of forensics, ballistics, human rights and humanitarian law and include experienced investigators.

As the fact-finding team is established by the Secretary-General and has the full endorsement of the Security Council, Amnesty International expects that the team, when it arrives in Jenin this week-end, will proceed to establish what happened on the basis of relevant UN standards, in particular the UN Principles for the Effective Investigation of Extra-Legal, Arbitrary and Summary Executions, the 1991 Manual on the Effective Prevention and Investigation of Extra-Legal, Arbitrary and Summary Executions, and the 1995 Guidelines for the conduct of UN Inquiries into Allegations of Massacres.

An immediate concern of the team must be the preservation of evidence. If the team does not have as yet all necessary resources to carry out the thorough, professional investigation that must be held, including the necessary equipment for the recovery of bodies, Amnesty International calls on the international community to immediately make the necessary assistance available to the UN enabling the team to do so.

26 April 2002

 

AI Index: MDE 01/011/2002

26 April 2002

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